Virtualization is a technology that allows one computer to do the job of multiple computers by sharing resources of a single computer across multiple systems. Through the use of virtualization, multiple operating systems and applications can run on the same computer at the same time, thereby increasing utilization and flexibility of hardware. Virtualization allows servers to be decoupled from underlying hardware, thus resulting in multiple virtual machines sharing the same physical server hardware. Virtual switches provide network connectivity between the virtual machines and physical ports on the servers. A distributed virtual switch may be deployed in many different network settings. For example, the distributed virtual switch may operate across different physical locations, at a central location and remote office/branch office, in hybrid clouds, or across layer 2 or layer 3 domains. Since network connectivity and other attributes may vary in each deployment, different behavior is desired among components of the distributed virtual switch.
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